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As Good As It Gets

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Blistering performances.

Just turned 18 young Cliff goes downtown and meets hustler Butch and falls for him. Butch is pretty f**ked up. As an addict his spiral downwards spins off pretty quick, I must add to my comfort and thankfully as the last little snatch of plausibility this film had to offer. Being drawn from stories by Bruce LaBruce one knew what to expect. Thank God his hip hypocrisy when it comes to his own direction was passed to other hands with visible improvement. Though this is not enough.Brendan Fehr's portrait of Butch is good acting, with one misfire I think. A bit too much accent on the likable-because-good-underneath guy. This makes the film implausible, for it steals the comic moments, and gives hints, although not making something work out, either as morality lesson, or letting it be just plainly cynical. Andre Noble's twit undercurrent was spot on, though I am not so sure about his somewhat raging blandness at the end. But this is more the script's blandness.I liked the cinematography, as if it was coming from an early nineties New Queer Cinema feature. But as another reviewer mentions, looking so terrible, although obviously intentional, was unwise, too.Little sis' was the least narcissistic of all people in the film. This does not come off as poignant, but as detrimentally cynical.As most things in the film, betting on weirdness for its own sake. (The scene in the limo, with all the boys getting naked, almost had something of "Shortbus"'s sheen.) There was one properly chilling moment: the two guys at the pool being almost comically terifying.The detail of the fake black nail on Butch's right hand, ah! This is what Bruce LaBruce's punk grit comes down to: have a black nail just to get high.

Cliff (Andre Noble) has just turned 18 and is a virgin...and is gay. He sneaks into the city to meet a guy. He runs into hot hustler Butch (Brendan Fehr) and (understandably) falls in love. Butch seems to fall for Cliff also...but Butch is getting addicted to drugs and threatens to bring Cliff down with him.This is definitely not for everybody. It's fairly graphic--there's full frontal male nudity (not on Fehr or Noble though), drug abuse, plenty of sexual talk and has simulated sex acts performed with gusto. It's also one of the most depressing films I have ever seen. Still I couldn't stop watching. Basically it's a coming of age story about Cliff...but I found him incredibly annoying. I realize actor Noble died at a far too young age, but frankly I found his acting here fairly dreadful. His attraction to Fehr comes through but most of the time I couldn't figure out WHAT he was thinking...or playing. Also he looks just horrible through most of the film. On the other hand Fehr is excellent. This must have been a difficult role but he pulls it off brilliantly. He shows all sides of his character Butch. He's sometimes funny, sometimes cruel and, at the end, heartbreaking. Fehr has to pull off some explicit sexual scenes and does it wonderfully. He's also very handsome and has a great body. For those who care he does show his butt briefly. I found the character of Butch so much more interesting than the increasingly annoying Cliff.The film is shot on video leading to a pretty grimy picture. The color is faded, some of the camera work is shaky and things aren't exactly crystal clear. The sound sometimes fades in and out too. Still this is a fascinating if disturbing movie. See it for Fehr. I give it an 8.

SUGAR Aspect ratio: 1.85:1Sound format: Dolby DigitalWhile celebrating his 18th birthday, a naive young man (Andre Noble) travels to the big city in search of his first sexual encounter and falls in love with a gorgeous twentysomething hustler (Brendan Fehr) who leads him into forbidden territory.Only his second feature in almost thirty years - the first was ME (1975) - theatre director John Palmer helmed this grim slice-of-life movie, based on the 'JD' stories by underground writer-filmmaker Bruce La Bruce (HUSTLER WHITE, THE RASPBERRY Reich, etc.). Uncompromising in its approach to sex and drugs and everything in between, SUGAR follows Noble into the dark heart of Toronto's street culture, blinded by his feelings for beautiful bisexual hustler Fehr (a long way from "Roswell High"), who ends up using Noble as a pawn in his relentless quest for self-gratification. Palmer's script (co-written with Jaie Laplante and Todd Klinck) depicts Fehr's world as an alien landscape where addicts and sex workers struggle to retain their humanity: There's an extraordinary scene in which Fehr masturbates a clinically obese client (Pat Butcher) in her own home, after she's spent months saving the $300 needed to buy his services, a deed which Noble later describes as 'an act of compassion', and which is treated as such by filmmakers and actors alike.Working on a microscopic budget (the movie was photographed on digital video and transferred to 35mm for theatrical exhibition), Franklin relies on his actors to sell the drama, and they all come up trumps: Noble is quite superb as Fehr's unwitting devotee, more than willing to submerge himself in the older man's lifestyle, until he's forced to participate in one of Fehr's tricks (a haunting, difficult sequence). Fehr shatters his squeaky-clean TV image with a no-holds-barred performance as the street-wise prostitute who sells his beauty to the highest bidder, only to find himself increasingly dependent on hard drugs, a dependency which spirals into paranoia and self-destruction. Celebrated character actor Maury Chaykin (OWNING MAHOWNY) appears briefly as one of Fehr's regular customers, and Sarah Polley (DAWN OF THE DEAD) plays a young addict who asks Noble to marry her and provide a father figure for her unborn child (he declines). The film contains frontal nudity in abundance, but not from the two leads, both of whom are nevertheless displayed in various states of undress throughout; very little of it is even remotely sexy, and that's entirely in keeping with the film's downbeat tone.The definition of a 'promising young actor', Noble began his career on stage in his native Canada, specializing in Shakespearean roles, and later co-founded The Young Company (later renamed The Noble Players) in Toronto with fellow actor Matt Austin. After brief appearances in high profile gay films TWIST (2003) and PROM QUEEN: THE MARC HALL STORY (2004), he landed his first leading role in SUGAR, for which he garnered hugely positive reviews on the festival circuit. Sadly, whilst on a short break from publicizing the film in July 2004, Noble died of aconitine poisoning after accidentally consuming a lethal dose of monkshood sap during a boat trip to Silver Fox Island, Newfoundland. He was 25.

For at least 15 years I have told people that the worst movie I ever saw was Warriors of the Wasteland. Well, Sugar has finally displaced it.The acting is, in a word, execrable. In all fairness, it could be that the actors had nothing to work with because the script was so hackneyed... forced and tired imagery, ridiculous plot twists and dialogue so painfully bad that I could only bear to watch the first 30 minutes. My partner watched the rest (he felt obliged, having been the one who rented it...) and he assures me that it actually got worse after I left.I'm a patient movie viewer, generally. I've sat through some pretty awful films to the very end. But this asked way too much. Sarah - I'm disappointed. Maybe in your autobiography you'll reveal why you gave this script a second look.